Chapter IXCatalogue of Functional Components

LIONS AND CUBS, as originally conceived, bore a significant
resemblance to ships of the Fleet. Advance bases, like ships, were
essentially self-contained, largely independent entities, created to
perform an exact task and designed accordingly. They were laid down
in terms of precise specifications set forth in detailed allowance
lists of both matériel and personnel. Thus, as a logistics plan, the
program of four LIONS and twelve CUBS differed in content but not in
kind from the contemporaneous programs for carriers and cruisers.
Each called for the procurement of specified men and gear for whatever
operations an uncertain future might indicate.

In operation, however, bases were also unlike ships. In
spite of a considerable success, the degree of mobility which had been
imparted to bases was only relative. In contrast to ships, they could
not be rapidly shifted to a new site to meet altered circumstances, nor
could one be readily replaced by another of appropriately different design.
To function effectively, each base had to possess peculiar characteristics
dictated not only by its mission, but also by geographic
conditions. Even more than a ship, it was necessarily tailored to its
individual purpose. These facts were demonstrated by the first LIONS
and CUBS.

Although one LION and three CUBS were ready in large measure
on 1 July 1942, only CUB #1 moved forward shortly thereafter.
LION #1

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was detained on the West Coast for six months, with a consequent temporary
waste of its material and human assets, while an unplanned CUB,
#13, improvised chiefly from the appropriate equipment of LION #1, the
readiest source of the requisite unobligated material, was sent out a
full year before its number should have been reached. Simultaneously,
several new types of unit were established to meet emergent needs. In
short, the LION and CUB concept was inadequate. Useful as a procurement
technique, it lacked a flexibility essential for distribution and establishment.

The manifest need for a more viable tool was filled by the
Catalogue of Advanced Base Functional Components, which was promulgated
by Op-30 on 15 March 1943. It was comparable in many respects to the
catalogue of Sears, Roebuck or Montgomery Ward. The key units were
no longer bases of varying magnitude and mission, but the functional
units of which any base, whether large or small, was composed. With the
Catalogue as a guide, all bases could and would readily be tailored to
their individual circumstances. A standard LION or CUB became merely
a descriptive term, and henceforth, only by hance might one actually be
established. Like its commercial counterparts, the Catalogue served
the needs both of procurement and of distribution. In procurement, it
provided a means of capitulating requirements in functional terms for
later allocation as the needs of the moment might indicate. Such sterilization
of ready assets as occurred in the case of LION #1, was less
likely to recur. In terms of distribution and establishment, the Catalogue
made tailoring a normal and easy process, one readily undertaken

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by the officers in the field responsible for the particular operation,
who alone possessed the requisite knowledge, both of military plans and
of conditions, climatic and topographic. Like a commercial catalogue,
it was an essential link between producer and consumer.

The process by which the Catalogue was created can be described
only in general terms, chiefly on the basis of oral evidence.
It was the product of the collaboration of a number of officers in Operations
and in the Bureaus. They worked in compliance with neither formal
directive, nor even informal memorandum. No certain moment can be
designated for the inception of the undertaking; primary credit for
the idea can be assigned to no one man. Very much like Topsy, the
concept just grew.

The gradual evolution of the broad notion can be discerned
in the record of the Advance Base Friday Morning Conference. On 10
July [1942], at the time when CUB #1 was being loaded, the statement was made
by Commander H. E. Eccles that "Once a CUB leaves U.S., we can expect
that it will be very similar to CUB One, which means that it will be
standard CUB minus certain items plus certain other items." While the
remark shows an appreciation of the fact that an adjustment of advance
base material allowances would normally be necessary, it also demonstrates
an expectation that variations would usually be minor and that
essentially standard assemblies would ordinarily satisfy the requirements
of the operating forces. Early in November, the Commanding Officer
of LION #2 noted that "all of any unit such as LION,
CUB, and ACORN

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might not be needed." He added that the policy of not splitting up
units interfered with the filling of emergency needs and that the
ordering out of full units resulted in a duplication of personnel and
matériel and the waste of critical material. "On the other hand, (a)
LION may be needed complete or CUBS and
ACORNS may be needed complete."
His discussion thus showed the need for flexibility, though his purpose
was to argue the value for morale of retaining the identity of
units.1

By early December, Captain R. W. Cary, Director of Op-30, had
grasped the basic notion of the Catalogue. "I think those units should
be organized along functional lines. Each unit to perform a certain
function. My rough idea is to do away with LIONS and CUBS completely ...
We could pull off many of those units as a whole or combination." By
mid-February, the compilation of the Catalogue was well under way.
"One of the most important projects ... on hand now is the breaking
down of the LIONS and CUBS and
ACORNS into their functional components.
This is being handled by Commander Mooney's section. Ensign Libby is
actually doing the detailed work and it involves considerable cooperation
from the bureaus."2

The foregoing excerpts from the record of the Friday Conferences
have been made in order to indicate how gradually the fundamental
concept underlying the Catalogue of Functional Components emerged. They
also explain in large measure the fact that most of the work was done by
a Reserve Ensign who had rather recently reported for duty in Op-30 and

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had had no experience at an advance base. The Base Maintenance Division
was deluged with urgent tasks and chronically understaffed. Important
jobs had to be done by inexperienced officers if they were to
be done at all. The Catalogue, of which the full significance was not
immediately realized, was no exception.

This was the process by which the compilation of the Catalogue
took place so far as memory served those among the officers concerned
who were still on duty in Op-30 in the autumn of 1945. During
November 1942, Captain Cary orally requested that a breakdown be made
of LIONS, CUBS and ACORNS.
He seems to have been thinking at this
time, or providing for bases of three sizes, large, medium, and small,
adapted to a number of different functions, such as airplane, destroyer,
or submarine repair, rather than of the development of units designed
to fill specified needs at bases of any size or primary purpose. Commander
E. B. Gibson outlined the procedure for this work and delegated
its detailed accomplishment to Ensign H. W. Libby. It was Commander
Gibson who seems to have conceived of a catalogue and who instructed the
term. Simultaneously, preliminary detailed personnel breakdowns were
prepared by Lieutenant J. B. Campbell (Bases Section--Projects in U.S.),
and Ensign J. H. Callahan (in Base Section--Personnel). Through December
and January, Ensign Libby worked out, at moments when other
more pressing duties allowed, a material breakdown.

This process involved the determination, from inadequate evidence,
of what were, in fact, the natural and viable divisions of an entity
originally conceived to be a fully integrated organism. Sound

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lines of demarcation were frequently not obvious. For example, only
slowly did Libby conceive camp units, that is, for the housing and
housekeeping equipment appropriate for varying numbers of men in several
climatic conditions. To this matériel would then be added an allowance
of personnel to perform housekeeping duties for all the men who occupied
those facilities. This particular concept was highly significant, since
it represented a bold departure from hitherto unchallenged assumptions.
The creation of camp units meant the formation of components on a basis
wholly distinct from the mission which either the base itself or most
of its personnel were expected ot fulfill. There was implied thus the
principle that, in general, components should be built around the material
equipment necessary for functional elements of the total activity of
bases. With appropriate modifications of detail, this principle constituted
a new means for computing all the allowances, both of matériel
and of personnel, approved for any projected base. There was little
difference in many cases--for example, the shore equivalent of the
repair facilities of an AR--between the results obtained under the
old and under the new method. With the new technique, however, there
would be added to this central nucleus not, as in the past, functionally
unrelated if essential gear and men for housekeeping, medical care, air
raid warning and so on, but appropriate components designed immediately
to discharge just those functions. With this principle as a guide, the
tailoring of advance base assemblies was greatly simplified. One the
primary component or components had been determined, such appropriate

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secondary components as the specific conditions of the projected base
indicated could readily be added. Similarly, to augment established
bases, additional primary components, and appropriate secondary ones,
could be dispatched with minimum delay, red tape, and duplication of
facilities. No effort would be required, for instance, to delete from
the equipment being assembled to augment an established base, gear designed
to protect a harbor against submarine attack. In short, by the
use of the Catalogue, efficient base assemblies would in future consist
simply of the total of the appropriate functional components.

In the determination of components Ensign Libby enjoyed varying
amounts of collaboration by officers engaged in advance base work
in the Bureaus and in other divisions of CNO. He found that BuOrd had
bee working independently along the same general line and that satisfactory
ordnance components had already been detailed. Little remained
to be done except to adapt BuOrd's numbering system to that of the general
catalogue. Similarly, medical units, which from the beginning had
been essentially distinct because they were highly specialized, were
largely worked out by officers in BuMed. Op-20 played an important
role in the formulating of Communications components. Libby consulted
extensively with officers in BuSHips and BuDocks with regard to components
with which they were concerned. BuAer took a considerable interest
and part in the definition of aviation components. On the other hand,
the participation of BuSandA and BuPers was negligible. In this general
fashion, the Catalogue began to take form.

It has already been noted that by mid-February, the compilation

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of the Catalogue was considered to be "one of the most important projects
... on hand" in Op-30. At the wish of Captain Cary and of his
relief, Rear Admiral C. H. Wright, the job was completed with dispatch.
By early March, sufficient progress had been made to warrant mimeographing.
Simultaneously, an introductory preface was written by Commander
Gibson, which explained the purpose of the Catalogue and the proper
procedures for its use by area commanders and requested the Bureaus to
prepare appropriate allowance lists. In the minds of the officers in
lower echelons, who drew it up, the document was a preliminary draft
to be submitted to the Bureaus for emendation. The question arose
whether the covering letter should bear a serial number. The resolution
of the uncertainty entailed an unexpected event. In spite of the fact
that responsibility for decisions of broad policy,3
such as the Catalogue represented, lay apparently with Op-11-G (later 05-G) rather than
Op-30, Admiral Wright decided to sign a formal letter of promulgation.
Thus, on 15 March 1943, the preliminary draft of the Catalogue entitled
at this time, Catalogue of Functional Units; a breakdown of the components
of the LION, CUB, ACORN,
motor torpedo boat, and smaller base
assemblies, was officially promulgated without Bureau revision and
made effective on receipt.4

Although the best--indeed almost the only--means of obtaining
a sound appreciation is a rapid examination of the Catalogue itself

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and of its associated allowance lists, a very brief summary of its contents
is desirable here. In addition to the promulgating letter and
the introduction, there ere a prefatory listing of the components in
major groupings,5
a statement of the composition of standard LIONS,
CUBS, and ACORNS, and a summary by components, of the personnel
and major material allowances.

The first edition of the was frankly a trial balloon
subject to early revision, and derived very largely from the existing
schedules for LIONS, CUBS,
and ACORNS. This was inevitable, particularly
since the Catalogue was published prior to its careful study by Bureau
experts. Its full meaning and value can have been clear only to
those who were already thoroughly acquainted with its antecedents. Yet
its early promulgation undoubtedly hastened the composition of an efficacious
Catalogue, for no matter how carefully a first edition might have
been prepared, experience would quickly have disclosed errors of commission
and omission which demanded prompt correction.

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The second edition, printed rather than mimeographed, was
promulgated on 15 July 1943, and made effective as of 15
August.6
It incorporated many new components--not a few on the order of the Camp
Unit in the first edition--gave the weights in long tons and the cubes
in measurement tons of the several components, and maps of a hypothetical
LIONUB, and ACORN.
Six Amendments were published between August 1943
and May 1944, each reflecting further experience and increasing the
usefulness of the Catalogue. A third and, as events transpired, a final
wartime edition designed to be effective on 15 October 1944, appeared
on 1 November. Its most notable features were still more components,
photographs of sample units, and a forthright statement of the principle
enunciated but not emphasized in the second edition that each
component was "dominated" by some one Bureau, which was responsible for
collating the detailed allowance list. The increased maturity of the
Catalogue is shown best perhaps by the fact that there were now listed
nearly 250 components instead of the 79 of the first edition. The Camp
group had grown from the single camp for 250 men of the first edition
to 26 of varying nature. There were now included such diverse units as
an oxygen generating plant, a typewriter repair unit, a malaria control
unit, personal arms for officers, a bakery; a gardening component, and
a lumber manufacturing unit, in addition to such primary components as
ship and airplane repair units. Moreover, the material content of the
components had also been constantly under scrutiny and frequently revised
and improved. The changes had constantly aimed at greater mobility,

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and by 1945, even heavy machinery was commonly tray or vehicle mounted.
Through all this process, the editor, now Lieutenant Libby, had retained
detailed responsibility. For the third edition, he was able to profit
from the ideas and experience of many officers--really experts by this
time--not only in CNO and the Bureaus, but also in the Fleet and overseas.
The matériel and personnel for established bases had by now been
assembled by means of the Catalogue and reports from their staffs,
written and oral, had naturally been accorded healthy respect. Yet the
general lines of the first edition remained. A summary of a standard
LION, CUB, and ACORN
was still included essentially unaltered; there
were added outlines of other standard base assemblies--Gropacs, Aircraft
Repair and Engine Overhaul Units, NATS Units, PT Base Units, Landing
Craft and Fleet Supply Units. The Catalogue had proved to be the
key tool in an extraordinarily complicated process. As the introduction
to the third edition stated: "Advanced Base Units are strategical in
conception, logistical in assembly, tactical when in movement and logistical
when established at their ultimate destination. Functional Components,
on the other hand, are for logistic purposes from inception to
final establishment." The Catalogue was the essential link between
logistics and operations.

The process buy which there were made additions to and improvements
of the components in the Catalogue deserves brief outline. Ideas
for improvements occurred to many officers engage in all phases of the advance
base activity--Op-30, the Bureaus, assembly depots, shipping activities,
operational planning staffs, new and established bases.

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Sometimes they were the subject of formal reports or memoranda. On occasion
they were a natural result of deficiencies outlined in more or less
routine reports of operations. Not infrequently, they grew out of
efforts to find a remedy for difficulties described in the Advance Base
Friday Conference by officers who visited Washington after duty at a
base. Whatever the origin of the idea, once a problem was recognized,
an effort was made to find a solution. Often this involved study in
Op-30 and the Bureaus. Possible solutions were ordinarily analyzed by
the technical staffs of Bureaus concerned and, when appropriate, by
operational staffs. Recommended amendments were then submitted to
Op-05G, and, if approved, incorporated in the Catalogue. In this process
Op-30 was the coordinating agency.

In spite of its vary great merits, the Catalogue was an incomplete
mechanism. Like it commercial counterpart, it was primarily
a merchandising tool. Yet CNO, in contrast to mail order houses, was in
its very nature a production as well as a distribution agency. The
latter deal ordinarily with what is, for them, a finished article. They
are interested directly in neither the fabrication nor the end employment
of their product. THus, the commercial simile is no longer useful.
For the Navy, the items in the Catalogue represented merely one step
in an integrated process. They were not an end in themselves, since
the Navy was responsible both for their manufacture and for their incorporation
into larger entities. The Catalogue needed supplementary documentation.
For example, in the planning and establishing of bases, it
might be necessary to know just what machines were included in an E-2--

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The shore equivalent of an AR. Likewise, in the assembling of a component,
there was required a schedule of the exact quantities and specifications
of the myriad items, even unto nuts and bolts, which entered
into its composition. The Catalogue provided details in neither degree.
This want was filled by the Advanced Base Initial Outfitting Lists,
prepared under the supervision of Lieut. L. A. Sheehan in Op-30.

The I.O.L.'s were the product of a development whose end was
not foreseen. The first step was, in fact, merely a necessary adaptation,
to suit the framework of the Catalogue of th Type Allowance
Lists regularly compiled for LIONS, CUBS,
and ACORNS. With Op-30 urging
all possible speed, these revised Type allowance Lists were prepared
by the cognizant Bureaus during the spring of 1943. They filled an
important need, but were soon found to be unsatisfactory. In spite of
Op-30's effort to secure uniformity, the pages supplied by the several
Bureaus continued to differ in format and in degree of detail. They
could not readily be bound, and their bulk was excessive. They were an
inconvenient tool. Since none were printed, in spite of the vast labor
which they represented, their quantity was limited and the reserve
stock soon exhausted. Because improvements in components were a regular
and frequent occurrence, it was not a practicable procedure to keep
several hundred widely distributed copies continuously accurate. The
Type Allowance Lists, in short, were not an appropriate complement of
the Catalogue.

The need, now recognized, was met by the preparation of two
parallel sets of material lists, abridged and detailed. During the

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winter of 1943-44, the abridged lists were prepared by the Bureaus and
printed by BuSandA under the guidance of Op-30, which determined question
of policy and format. The first edition was distributed on 15
March 1944 and revisions appeared quarterly in 1944 and in April and
August 1945, with a final edition planned for April 1946. A printed
volume of some 750 good-sized pages, it listed the major material equipment
of each component and indicated the quantity of each item together
with identifying data. It was designed "for those staff planning officers
who desire more detail information concerning major groups of
personnel and equipment than is offered in the Catalogue of Advanced
Base Functional Components." It proved to be wholly
satisfactory.7

The Initial Outfitting Lists (detailed) were compiled simultaneously
with the abridged Lists. Printing and distribution were
arranged by BuSandA in a format which it prescribed in compliance with
policies determined by Op-30. The technique of preparation was in itself
a difficult and important matter. The assembly lists had already
proved to be troublesome. They were necessarily extremely bulky and
their revision, which was required for almost every shipment, was a
laborious task. During the latter part of 1943, it had been determined
that they could profitably be transmogrified to suit the punch cards
used by International Business Machines. This was in itself a stupendous
job--it alone kept the machines at the Census Bureau and at other
agencies at work on a three shift bases for several months--but it
rendered the future preparation of shipping and outfitting lists a
comparatively simple process and undoubtedly justified its cost. The

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Advanced Base Initial Outfitting Lists (Detailed), which were issued
during the spring of 1944, were printed from copy produced by the IBM
punch cards. What they really were, in consequence, was a printing for
considerably wider distribution of the assembly or shipping lists which
happened to be current at that time. As a consequence of their origin
in the punch cards, they were necessarily of uniform size. Their
sheets were bound by components, the larger and more complex ones requiring
several volumes. A complete set, for the components existing
in June 1944, comprised 479 large volumes and weighed 250 pounds. "Designed
specifically for procurement, assignment and assembly of materials,"
they contained complete detail and were also available to planning
officers or other who desired more information that the abridged
lists contained. They rounded out in fine fashion the tools requisite
for procuring, assembling, shipping, and establishing advance bases in
accordance with the concept of functional components.8

Originally, it was expected that revisions of the Detailed
Initial Outfitting Lists would be published at intervals of perhaps a
year. In practice, it developed that, except for the procurement and
assembly of such particular components as the exigencies of combat required,
the original lists were satisfactory for most purposes. Hence,
the production of periodic revisions as such was abandoned. Mimeographed
addenda were, however, distributed periodically. Never very
distinct, the earlier allowance lists thus came to be identical with

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the assembly lists and the Detailed Initial Outfitting Lists were merely
a printed example as of a particular date in 1944. Allowance lists,
for actual or hypothetical use as the case might be, could be prepared,
should occasion demand, from the IBM punch cards, but, in fact, they were
seldom required. The master "deck" of punch cards was kept by the
Advance Base Section of BuSandA, which ran off assembly schedules when
requested. Duplicate decks of their own items were kept by the other
Bureaus in Washington. A second complete deck existed on the West
Coast, with the BuSandA cards at Oakland, the BuDocks ones at Port
Hueneme and the rest at Clearfield. The other BuDocks depots also had
decks of BuDocks items. When changes were made, BuSandA prepared and
distributed new cards for each of the subsidiary decks. By the use of
this system, lists incorporating all the latest revisions were readily
available in sufficient quantity on each coast at short notice. They
were used chiefly for actual assemblies. The printed lists continued
to serve most planning purposes.

Those three tools, then, the Catalogue of Advanced Base Functional
Components, the Abridged Advanced Base Initial Outfitting Lists,
and the Assembly Lists with the associated printed Detailed Initial
Outfitting Lists, were one of Op-30's great contributions to naval logistics.
Together, they constituted an extremely flexible instrument,
adaptable to highly varied requirements, yet efficient in operation. By
their use, the formulation of Advance Base requirements was a relatively
simple matter. Thus, they helped to solve a great logistics problem.
They also provided a key to the answer of an associated and likewise a
difficult question, the proper scheduling of the same requirements.